


the accidental soulbond

by theladyscribe



Series: Hockey WIP Amnesty [8]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Accidental Soulbonds, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulbonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 21:43:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/pseuds/theladyscribe
Summary: but imagine a media scrum where there's someone new who hasn't been around the team and they're like, "so how does your bond with Geno affect your play on the ice?" and they're met with dead silence because /they're not bonded/.





	the accidental soulbond

**Author's Note:**

> This is an abandoned WIP that I won't be finishing. It's also the first S/G thing I wrote and one of the very first hockey fics I began.

but imagine a media scrum where there's someone new who hasn't been around the team and they're like, "so how does your bond with Geno affect your play on the ice?" and they're met with dead silence because /they're not bonded/. are they? Sid has never been more thankful for his media training because he can see everyone else's pole-axed faces. and the reporter is trying to back-pedal, but it's too late to take the question back, and Sid finally says, "Geno and I have played together for a long time, and are used to each other's style on the ice which makes it easy to score goals"

but now Sid is thinking about it, about how he can anticipate where Geno's going to be on the ice, how Geno always seems to find the center of his tape, how when they're on the ice together they're unstoppable. and then he starts thinking about how sometimes he knows Geno is going to call before he calls, how the day Geno went swimming with the whale sharks Sid felt great all day long for no reason, how he always seems to know when Geno steps into a room even when he has his back to the door

Sometimes, he knows when geno is going to call before he actually does. Sid hadn't really considered that to be a sign of a bond; his dad's side of the family has always been a little psychic, a little prescient, and having some phone calls pre-screened is one of the benefits. Now that he thinks about it, though, he always knows when geno's calling.

He calls his dad. They exchange pleasantries, chat about the on-going power play issues, catch up on family news, before his dad finally asks, "So what's up, kiddo?"

"When you and mom bonded, how did you know?"

"Have you -- did you meet someone, Sidney?"

Sid thinks about how to answer that. "I don't know. I'm trying to figure that out."

Troy hmms curiously, but answers the question. "Your mom and I [something something instantaneously]."

"Do you -- " Sid stops and starts again. "Are there ever times when people don't -- "

"Sid? Is everything alright?" There's concern in his dad's voice now, more than curiosity.

"Can you bond and not know it?" he blurts finally.

There's a long pause with only his dad's breathing across the line. "I suppose it's possible," he allows. "It's definitely rare, though."

Sid waits for the question he knows is coming.

"Who did you bond with, kiddo?"

"I don't know for sure, but I think I might've with Geno." It's the first time he's said the words out loud.

There's another, longer pause, long enough that Sid holds his phone away from his face to make sure the call wasn't dropped. When he puts it back to his ear, his dad is saying, " -- makes you think that?"

 

 

"I think we should see a bond specialist," he says to Geno over lunch one day. "I think we might've bonded"

Geno looks at him like he's crazy. "That's crazy, Sid," he says. "We'd know if we bonded"

"Humour me," Sid says, not pleading, because this isn't exactly something he's desperate to know.

Geno rolls his eyes but agrees to do it, if for no other reason than to convince Sid that it's ridiculous. They go to a bond specialist on their next off-day, in a town in eastern Ohio, because even with their hats pulled low and in the least flashy car between the two of them, they still stick out like sore thumbs and get accosted for autographs. But it's the middle of the work day, and the specialist's office is in a run-down strip mall, so they somehow manage to make it there unscathed.

They don't exactly make it out of the specialist's office unscathed, though, because she takes one look at the two of them and says, "How many years have you been bonded?" before glancing down at their paperwork to where Sid had very carefully marked "potential bond"

"I've seen weaker bonds on couples who've been together for fifty years," she tells them, and they are just flabbergasted. "alright, clearly this was unexpected, but you've obviously not been having any sort of issues with the bond, so I am going to recommend that you take some time to get used to the idea, and if you start to have proximity problems or disorientation, then we'll get you set up with bond therapy"

sid and geno are like "really? that's all??"

and she's like, "no really, there's not a whole lot I can do? your bond is really stable, and unless something screws that up, you don't need any assistance. also, I'm a specialist, not a therapist, so I can really only identify bonds and possible issues and refer you to a therapist"

the drive back to Pittsburgh may be the most awkward sixty minutes Sid has ever spent with Geno, and that includes the dinner at Mario's the very first night he arrived

Sid proceeds to spend the next week and a half trying to figure out exactly when it is that he and Geno bonded. he's pretty sure it wasn't at World Juniors because he feels like he would have noticed (he was on the lookout for a bond when he was a teenager, imagined it would be instantaneous like his parents' was). it might've been at Mario's that first night -- there was enough chaos that it would have been easy to miss the connection when it happened -- but even that seems... too early

Sid finally gives up on trying to figure out on his own when the soulbonding happened and goes to Geno

"Geno, do you know when we bonded?" he asks. Geno just looks at him blankly for a long moment before saying, "No, Sid. Didn't know we bonded until we went to specialist." The "you dumbass" is implied.

"I've been trying to figure it out," Sid tells him, soldiering on because what else can he do. "Do you think it might've been at Mario's when you first came to Pittsburgh? Or maybe when we won the Cup?"

"Don't know, Sid. Doesn't matter." Geno sounds annoyed, head down as he strips off his pads. "Already happened, can't take it back. Just have to live with it." He stands up and pushes past Sid, headed for the showers.

[GENO IS UPSET THAT THESE ~FEELINGS HE'S KIND OF BEEN HAVING ABOUT HIS CAPTAIN ARE PROBABLY BOND-INDUCED AND NOT GENUINE. HE IS ALSO UPSET THAT ANY POTENTIALLY MUTUAL ~FEELINGS MAY ALSO BE BOND-INDUCED.

he's wrong, bc science has disproved it, but there's a very strong cultural tradition/assumption that bonds induce feelings and not the other way around. it's one thing to hear through the grapevine that it's been disproved but it's another to actually believe the science is right

(believe/trust, really, especially with something so subjective and difficult to quantify as emotions)

(Geno, it should be noted, is also upset with how finding out they have a bond has messed with the status quo. Everything was fine before they knew -- the specialist even said so -- so why did they have to go screw it up and have it confirmed)]

Sid and Geno have a fight about the bond like, maybe they have a bad game one night and Sid misreads Geno's mood and tries to talk to him about it, and Geno just goes off on him about how finding out about the bond has ruined EVERYTHING and why was it so important to know, Sid, and why couldn't they have just left it alone

and Sid is like, "well you didn't have to go along with it, you could have just said to drop it if you didn't want to know" and Geno just gives him this baleful look because seriously, they both know Sid would not have dropped it (and also that Geno goes along with just about anything Sid requests)(oh also, the bond specialist did tell them that if they want to open the bond more to read each other better, they'll probably need training for that; she recommended against it, though, because it can have some weird side-effects and they could wander into ethically dubious territory w/r/t their job since it would give them an even greater advantage on the ice)

Sid is totally being a petulant jerk and he knows it. and when he's cooled down some, he decides to apologize, but Geno is very pointedly not answering his phone. so Sid gets the *brilliant* idea to try to open up the bond a little bit. not much, just a little poke at it, where it sits in the back of his mind like a small golden glow

so Sid pokes at the bond because he is kind of an idiot, and Geno snaps back with a hot flash of hurt/anger/frustration, and Sid is like, "well that was a bad idea" and they, like, don't talk about it, because Geno doesn't talk about stuff (any kind of stuff) unless someone asks him and Sid is definitely not going to ask right now. they're at an impasse, and I'm too tired to figure out how they fix it, but it probably involves some more arguing and maybe some makeouts and a decision to go to bond therapy after alland then the story ends with a reporter asking about their bond again and Sid saying something about "it took us a while to figure it out, but it's pretty good now"

“I figured out we probably didn’t bond until after my concussion,” Sid says. “The doctors would have noticed it if we had.” Geno hums but doesn’t say anything.“Do you think it might’ve been when we were both out that season? We spent a lot of time together then.”“Don’t know, don’t care,” Geno answers, continuing to shovel pasta in his mouth. “Not matter anyway, you know.”

Sid tries to mask his annoyance. “Of course it matters, Geno. We /bonded/. Don’t you want to know how?”

“No. Doesn’t matter. We bond, it’s done. Can’t take it back, can’t un-bond. Just have to deal with it.”

I am not sure *who* sorts them out. possibly someone not on the team? because I think Sid finally gives up and goes back to the specialist

"Can bonds be broken? Or, um, silenced?"

and he’s like, “I don’t know what to do, because he won’t talk to me about it, and I don’t know what’s wrong”

and she’s like, “I am going to refer you to a therapist, because this is outside my license”

in this world, there are kind of two sides to bond healthcare, somewhat similar to the difference between psychologists and psychiatrists: specialists can run tests and make recommendations for care but can’t really *do* anything beyond that; therapists can prescribe medications to suppress the bond and/or its side effects as well as do bond therapy sessions

so Sid goes to see the therapist he’s been referred to and asks if it’s possible to sever a bond without adverse affects

the bond therapist is like, “technically yes, but it’s very experimental and I don’t recommend it.” Sid is insistent though, and the therapist sighs and says, “I can’t even consider severance without consent from all parties. if you both agree to it, it can be done.”

Sid relays this information to Geno, who is apoplectic. “You want SEVER bond? WHY”

Sid is like, “what.”

“I thought this is what you wanted. You were definitely unhappy about the bond and you never wanted to talk about it. And we can get it done over the summer in case there are side effects.”

part of the reason Geno doesn't want to sever the bond harks back to the cultural expectations of bonding in more conservative cultures (like Russia), bonds are just short of sacrosanct. you don't treat them flippantly, and it's a really big deal if you bond and nobody would EVER dare to suggest that you try to un-bond

so when Sid comes to G and suggests they sever the bond, his freak out is layered: he's just starting to come to terms with the idea of being bonded with Sid, he's still got the cultural misconception re bonds influencing feelings (so he's trying to figure out whether his feelings are real), AND on top of all that, there's the ingrained social constructs of Russian bond culture and now Sid -- who was the one who pushed to find out if they were bonded in the first place -- wants to SEVER the bond? Geno is so upset and hurt and scared that he kind wants to catch a plane back to Russia so he can go lay his head on his mother's lap and cry (he can't, of course, because it is january, and it's the middle of the season, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to enough that he calls his mama who sighs and fusses over him as best she can from thousands of miles away)

 

They fight in that liminal time between Christmas and New Year’s. Things have been rocky for a while, pent-up frustration about hockey but also about staying closeted, about not revealing that their soulbond is more than just platonic. It’s frustrating, because Sid wants to be out, wants not to have to hide this part of himself (he has to keep so much hidden behind his media mask, he’d like to not have to hide this). But Geno… Geno can’t, won’t, because to be out is to risk so much—his family, his friends, Russia. Sid knows and understands, but it doesn’t stop the harsh words from spilling from his mouth when they fight during the holidays.

Geno gives back, as good as he gets, maybe worse, because half of it’s in Russian, which he knows Sid can’t understand. Not that that matters. For his second language, Geno’s English is really good at finding Sid’s vulnerable spots.

Anyway, there’s slamming of doors, and silent treatments, and a pull at Sid’s heart like a pain he can’t describe. He shakes it off, tries not to let the wrongness mess with his game, shrugs it off because it’s probably just stress due to the fact that he and Geno aren’t speaking to each other and they’re sleeping in separate rooms for the first time since the Cup win.

It’s not until after the game against Tampa Bay, after the second hit in as many days, when he’s being checked for a concussion, that the doctors say, “Your bond’s been broken.”

He’s not sure if Geno did it intentionally. He doesn’t even know how to ask, scared of what the answer might be.

 

It's not until after the bond is gone that Sid realizes how much it had affected him. Before, the hum of the bond had been so steady and constant that he hadn't even noticed it. Now, the silence is deafening. And silence isn't even the right word for it. The bond was a situational awareness, a certainty of his place in proximity to Geno.

That certainty is gone, and Sid isn't sure of how much of that loss is the bond itself and how much of it is simply the knowledge that their friendship is in ruins. He doesn't know how Geno is dealing with the break in their bond. Truth be told, he doesn't even know if Geno knows it's been broken. (A small voice in his head scoffs; there's no way Geno could not notice this change. Then again, Geno hasn't even attempted to contact him.)

All of this culminates in Sid's decision to go see Geno when he knows the team has an off-day. He knows Geno's routine, knows he'll sleep in until ten before fixing himself brunch. Sid usually tries to be cognizant of Geno's schedule, of not interrupting, especially on an off-day, but this is important enough that he feels justified in calling a cab to take him to Geno's house.

Geno is pretty certain he didn’t mean to rip the bond. Those couple of weeks between Christmas and the Tampa game are a blur of anger and misery, a lot of time spent on the couch at Paulie and Nealer’s, too pissed to even try to explain what’s going on.

(They have a vague idea. Paulie knows it’s bond-related, and Lazy knows it’s Sid-related—you’d have to be stupid not to know it was Sid-related—but neither of them know just how deep Sid and Geno’s bond actually is. They both figure the two of them will work it out, though. They always do.)

Things are tense in the locker room, and they only get worse once the news comes down about Sid’s head. And then there’s a closed-door meeting where Bylsma asks Geno point-blank why he broke the bond.

Geno stares at him for a long moment, processing the question slowly, like he used to when he was just figuring out how to parse English. The longer he thinks about it, the more the sick feeling that’s been roiling in his stomach for the last week and a half makes sense. He’d thought it was hangover-induced, and then assumed food poisoning or a stomach bug, and then worry about Sid, but this, this makes sense. This fits.

Bylsma is still waiting for an answer, though, so Geno shrugs and rubs his face. “Didn’t think it would happen like this,” he says, because it’s the only thing he can think of that is certainly not a lie.

*

Sid shifts between being wracked with guilt about the loss of the soulbond and anger for feeling guilty when it's Geno's fault the bond is gone. And then he feels bad again, because Geno wouldn't have broken the bond if it weren't for the fight Sid started.

It's a never-ending spiral, and he spends too much time thinking about it, lying in the dark of his bedroom, in too much pain to do anything else.

Sid isn't cleared to drive when Geno's knee is injured in the game against the Sabres. Even if he were, he's not sure he'd want to go see Geno, still not ready to face him.

It's a month later, after a long session with his therapist, that Sid finally decides it's time. He's still not supposed to drive, so he calls a driver to take him to Geno's neighborhood.

The guard waves him into the gated community with barely a blink, probably just surprised it's been so long since the last time he was here. Sid tries not to think about the fact that the last time he was here was when Geno ripped the bond.

He has the driver drop him outside Geno's gate. The guy offers to wait for him, but Sid shakes his head. "It might be a while."

He hopes he's right about that as he steps up and presses the buzzer.

*

The team is out of town and he didn't order any food for delivery, so Geno doesn't know who to expect when he answers the gate buzzer.

"Geno, it's me," says Sid on the other end of the intercom. "Can I come in?"

Geno buzzes him in, fairly sure Sid will just wait outside the gate until he relents.

"What you doing here?" he asks when he answers the door. He shuffles aside to let Sid into the hall, but he uses his crutches to block him from coming further into the house.

"I needed to get out of the house for a while. Nathalie and the kids -- they mean well, but they get overwhelming, y'know?"

"What you doing here, Sid?"

Sid shrugs, an uncomfortable twitch of his shoulders, and Geno watches his Adam's apple bob. "I thought you might need some help with stuff around the house. Nealer said you were having trouble with the crutches?"

Geno scowls. "Don't need help. I'm do just fine on my own."

"Oh. I can -- I can go, then. If you want." He tugs at his coat, a nervous tick, and turns back to the door slowly, like he's waiting for Geno to call him back.

"See you later, Sid," Geno says, watching with a twinge of bitter satisfaction as Sid's shoulders hunch just a fraction more.

"Yeah," Sid says softly as he lets himself out.


End file.
